


are you going to age with grace, only to wake and hide your face?

by panlesters



Series: Amelia [4]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst ish, Bullying (mentioned), M/M, Make Up, parent!phan, they're good parents ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:46:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22120510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panlesters/pseuds/panlesters
Summary: It's a little worrying, the way their daughter begins to cover her face in photos.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Series: Amelia [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1580938
Comments: 6
Kudos: 53





	are you going to age with grace, only to wake and hide your face?

**Author's Note:**

> yess more parent!phan,, turns out i like writing this a lot  
> ugh i've been trying to write a fic for this song for fucking years and it finally came to me i hope you enjoy!
> 
> title from oblivion by bastille

It doesn’t strike him as odd, at first. They’re taking a family selfie to send to Kath and Nigel, and Amelia stretches her arm out to the camera to hide her face. Phil giggles and wraps an arm round her to tickle her side and make her drop her arm, and in that split-second Dan has taken the photo.

But it’s January before long, and they’re on the Isle of Man for Phil’s birthday. Phil asks if they can take a big family photo and Amelia tries again to hide her face. Dan picks up on it this time, but he doesn’t mention it to her. He just wishes he knew what was going on with her. He and Phil don’t know much about young girls, having both only grown up with brothers.

In his concern, Dan turns to Bryony.

“I don’t know, most girls go through that phase, I think,” Bryony tells him as they sit with Phil in her garden, each of them with a daiquiri in their hands. It’s a bright sunny Saturday afternoon and Amelia is at dance rehearsals. “Sticking their tongue out at the camera, talk to the hand, all that shit.” She shrugs. “She’s what, thirteen now?”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Phil groans. “I feel so old.”

“Perfect, that’s exactly what I was going for,” Bryony deadpans. “What I’m saying is, she’s a teenager now, and she’ll be having all the attitude that comes with that.”

Next comes a sudden interest in make-up. Phil’s taking Amelia round town one day when they pass a Superdrug.

“Hey, Papa, can we have a look in there?”

“Sure, kiddo, what are we looking for?”

She grabs herself a basket and makes her way to the make-up section.

“I want to try foundation,” she tells him, shrugging. Phil nods, smiling.

“Sure, Ames,” he smiles. “I know your dad always thought about make-up, maybe you can learn together.”

“I just don’t know what tone to get,” she tells him, staring down at a selection of foundations Phil thinks she probably knows nothing about.

“Well,” he tells her. “This is all pretty pricey stuff for not knowing if it’s right.” He puts a hand on her shoulder to try and guide her away. “Maybe we can find you some youtube tutorials on how to find a good tone for you first.”

“No!” she says suddenly. Phil frowns. “I – I mean, I’d really like to just pick some, if that’s alright.”

“Well, I don’t think this time,” Phil tells her. “Maybe we can find something a bit cheaper for you first, okay? Another time.”

Amelia tries to argue with him a little more, but to no avail.

Phil brings it up with Dan once Amelia is in bed.

“She was pretty insistent, Dan, I’ve never really seen her like it.” He’s tapping his foot next to the sofa, trying to channel his stress.

“Do you think this is linked with her camera thing?” Dan says quietly. “Do you… do you think something’s happening at school?”

“God, I hope not.” The thought makes Phil queasy, but he remembers from being in a high school friendship group of mostly girls how quickly things could go from friendly to at each other’s throats. He looks up to see Dan picking at his nails, his eyebrows creased together. He reaches over and threads a hand into Dan’s. “Hey,” he says quietly. “It’ll be okay.”

Dan knows it will be really. He knows schools are better now than they used to be, that anti-bullying is a much bigger movement than when he was at school. But he never wants anyone to go through what he went from, least of all his lovely, bubbly, cheerful Amelia. He sees so much of himself in her. The version of him that was happy and bright, before it got beaten out of him.

He looks up at Phil anyway, offers him a stiff smile. “Yeah.”

Phil manages to catch Amelia one day after school and ropes her into helping him chop some veg for dinner.

“So, Ames,” he begins. “How are things at school?”

“Uh, pretty good,” she shrugs. “Oh! I got a B on my science test!”

“A B!” Phil grins over at her. Not what he was expecting or reaching for, but he feels a rush of pride for her anyway. “That’s great, kiddo!”

“Thanks!” she smiles.

“What about your friends, how are they doing?”

“Well, Tom and Jess broke up,” she tells him, “And I think Jess likes Adam, but she keeps saying she doesn’t.”

“And what about you?”

“I don’t like anyone, Papa,” she giggles, rolling her eyes.

Phil shrugs. “That’s okay, Ames.”

She seems pretty happy, pretty open talking about it all. It makes Phil glad that they’re not sending her to hell every morning, but it makes him think further about where all this sudden need to cover her face has come from.

“You’re seriously overthinking this,” Bryony tells him over facetime. “She probably just wants to fit in with her friends, you know. When I was in school, a tonne of kids started wearing make-up really young, and everyone else wanted to catch up super bad.”

Phil still doesn’t think that’s it, but he nods and entertains the idea that it’s all just a want to fit in.

“Dad, I don’t really feel that well,” Amelia says one Saturday morning. “I don’t really want to go to dance today.”

“Oh,” Dan frowns. He stoops to feel her forehead with the back of his hand and runs a hand through her hair. “That’s not like you.”

“My stomach just hurts, I don’t wanna go anywhere.”

“Okay, baby,” he says. “Have a glass of water and take it easy and we’ll see how you are this afternoon, yeah?”

“Okay, Dad.”

She still says she’s not feeling well when two o’clock rolls around, but Dan is insistent she goes. Normally she’d go to dance no matter what; once they had to go and pick her up because she was hacking up a long, caught in a cold she had hidden from them so they wouldn’t make her stay home from rehearsals. It’s always been her number one priority.

“Maybe you’ll feel better once you get going, yeah?” Phil says to her in the car. “If not, get Mrs Bentley to ring us and we’ll come pick you up.”

It’s barely half past three when they get a call from Amelia’s dance teacher that she’s not well, and could they come pick her up.

Phil gives her a hug and presses a kiss to her forehead as they walk to the car.

“Sorry, kiddo,” he tells her. “How about we stop at Tesco and grab some classic sick food, yeah?”

“I kinda just want to go home, Papa,” she tells him softly. Her voice sounds like it’s wavering, and he frowns.

“Ames.” He says quietly. She doesn’t look at him. “What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?” She’s still quiet, and she’s still looking at her hands.

“You don’t want your picture taken, you want to wear make-up all of a sudden, you don’t want to be at dance rehearsal?” he pauses, reaching across a hand to take hers. “Sweetie, you know you can talk to me about anything, yeah?”

The floodgates open then. Her free hand flies to her face and Phil lets her other hand go in favour of getting back out the car and walking round to her side. She’s out and into his arms as quick as she can, crying loud sobs into his shirt as he rubs her back soothingly.

“Okay, baby, okay,” he tells her quietly. He _hates_ this, he _hates_ that someone did this to his little girl, the one who’s always been the happiest, gentlest, most loving kid. Someone _made her_ feel like this.

She pulls her face away and sniffles a little, wiping her eyes and nose on her sleeve.

“You wanna tell me about it?”

Amelia looks up at him, and nods.

“A couple of the girls said my face was really spotty,” she shrugs. “And then they didn’t stop, and then they started calling me names…” she pauses to take another sob. “And then they started saying I was just ugly, and then I borrowed some foundation from my friend because you wouldn’t let me buy any -” another sniff, “but they said I was still ugly and it’d have to be really thick make-up to cover how spotty my face is, and, and -” she stops to wipe her eyes again. “Papa, do you think my face is spotty?”

Phil frowns, and stoops to her height. “Amelia.” He takes her by each shoulder. “You are beautiful. You’re so pretty, you know?” he wipes an eye from her cheek and smiles softly. “And you’re not spotty, you have _freckles_. You know what freckles mean?”

“What?”

“It means the sun thought you were so pretty, it came down and kissed your cheek so many times it gave you freckles.” He reaches out a finger and gently pokes at her cheeks, making her laugh a little.

“Yeah, right,” she rolls her eyes.

“Okay, maybe not literally,” he shrugs. “But that’s besides the point. Freckles are so pretty. You know, when I first met your dad, it was nearly winter, and his freckles weren’t showing, but then when I saw him in summer for the first time, his face was covered in freckles, and you know what I thought?”

“What?”

“I thought, wow, as if I couldn’t be _more_ in love with him. I didn’t think _anything_ could make him prettier, and then I saw his freckles, and it added this extra special layer of prettiness that I didn’t even think was possible.”

Amelia smiles at that.

“And you! You keep your freckles all year round! That’s pretty cool, Ames. You get to keep the extra layer of prettiness all the time.”

“I guess,” Amelia mumbles. She sniffs again, and finally smiles up at Phil, looking him in the eye properly. “Thanks, Papa. I love you.” She wraps her arms around his chest and he smiles.

“I love you too, Ames.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! comments are appreciated, come scream at me @ panlesters on tumblr


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